Platform Decay (The Murderbot Diaries Book 8)

CHAPTER ONE

Space was okay to look at but not super fun when you were out in it. And Three and I were definitely in it, clamped on to the outside hull of a small in-system shuttle. It was just as uncomfortable as it sounds.

Obviously, to make this plan work, we had needed a suit. And considering this was the distraction part of the plan that would be taking the brunt of the attention, it was better if it was an armored suit. But it couldn't be Three's actual SecUnit armor, it had to look like the kind made for humans.

We had ended up with an armored suit designed to look like one that Wilken and Gerth had used back on Milu. Because someone (ART) thought this part could use some more verisimilitude. (Like someone might have researched that incident, and think I'd been hauling around one of those shitty sets of armor all this time, or hiding it in my secret rogue SecUnit lair. (Otherwise known as the Port Hotel on Preservation Station, or ART's aft module resident cabin, depending on where I was at the time.))

(I'm not saying using that armor design is not a good idea; I mean, that is some quality paranoid overthinking right there, we all have to agree on that.)

Anyway, even in an armored suit, traveling via clamping on to the outside of a shuttle moving through space was so inherently disturbing it was a relief when the black hull loomed out of the dark. We were coming up on our target/destination, which was a gigantic space dock attached to an even more gigantic planetary torus. There were multiple docks along the torus's outer hull, but this one was closest to our primary target, which was why we had to go in here. Literally because the thing was so big, and because multiple intel sources suggested it would be difficult to move around in. (Yes, that sounds like the opposite of super fun. There were a lot of other things I would rather be doing.)

A station that encircled an entire planet had to be huge. (And it was huge. From this vantage point you would have no idea there was a whole planet on the other side of this thing, over there somewhere.) It was also very old, not a point in its favor. In the few spot-lights along this part of the hull, you could see the metal had scrapes or impact marks that had been repaired over time. But what gave the age away were the engraved numbers stretching across the plates next to the various hatch accesses in the dock area. They had been put there for human pilots, before bot-pilots and the feed were common, as a failsafe for automated approach beacons. The numbers were in three different—number systems? Languages—What do you call numbers in different languages, characters or—

Numerals, Three said.

That didn't sound right, but whatever.

Our shuttle started its maneuvers into a parking sync orbit above the dock. The torus feed was just a dull roar even this close, and its Port Authority comm channel was all commands and info, no obtrusive ads. If I hadn't been so angry I would have been really intimidated at this point. Okay, I was still a little intimidated. But mostly angry. Not at Three.

(Emotion check: Angry. It's never a good idea to try to do complicated things when you're angry. Like coding. Coding is complicated. Especially when people are shooting at you. But I do that all the time.)

Three said, Target Null+1 on approach, and included the direction vectors. I didn't need any direction vectors, because Three had a visual on the cargo bot, so I had a visual on it. There were other bots moving on the torus hull some distance away, where big modular transports were connected to larger locks. On our shuttle's sensor feed I could see the lines of powered cargo modules traveling on their set routes, though that was too far into the dark to pick up with our scan or visual. But Target Null+1 bot was passing nearly beneath us. (At least it looked that way from our position on our shuttle. It could have actually been sideways or up or whatever, because space.)

The cargo bot climbed along a seam between hull plates, shifting in and out of shadow, an inert cargo container clamped under one arm, while the other three limbs guided its body along. It was one of the larger models, maybe seven meters tall from its splayed grippy feet to the flat top of its head/processor. Cargo bots are weirdly graceful in zero gravity, it was kind of cool to watch. (Unlike certain stations I could name (Preservation) which lets them wander around inside the port wherever they want and their giant metal asses are in the fucking way all the time.) (Yes, I'm mostly talking about JollyBaby.)